original episode notes and transcript here: https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/malaria-vaccine-tech-science-news/ Longtime podcast showrunner (2014-2022), primary host, and editor Sonal Chokshi shares three best-of episodes as she shifts gears and the show goes on hiatus until relaunched with a new host. As with all of the episodes on this show about tech & science trends in the news, and where they are on the long arc of innovation -- this one is actually a story of human ingenuity over 100 years...
Feb 22, 2022•38 min•Ep 71•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to 16 Minutes, our podcast where we discuss tech trends in the news and their impact on the long arc of innovation. Today’s topic is crypto regulation, and specifically, two recent federal government hearings in the news that were focused on crypto and therefore the related trend of web3. In contrast to the model of web2 — typified by very broadly used but also very centralized platforms run by corporations — web3 refers to the idea of a new internet enabled by crypto that is owned by bu...
Dec 20, 2021•12 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to 16 Minutes, our show on the a16z podcast network where we talk about tech trends that are dominating news headlines, industry buzz, and where we are on the long arc of innovation. Today’s episode actually features a look back at the GameStop saga — the stock market drama that some headlines described as a “David-and-Goliath battle” that quote “ upended Wall Street. ” For quick basic context, here’s what happened: A group of Reddit users mass-purchased and drove up prices of stock in t...
Dec 03, 2021•21 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to 16 Minutes, our show where we talk about tech trends in the news. We have two segments today: 1) The announcement recently that Valve Software, which operates the massive gaming platform Steam, added a rule against games that use blockchain technologies or that allow users to exchange cryptocurrencies or NFTs – this rule appeared on its “What you shouldn’t publish on Steam” onboarding list for developers. We go beyond the players to the trends at play here, putting the news in context...
Oct 26, 2021•20 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast In today’s episode we have two short segments, both on bioscience topics: [0:00] Moderna has started clinical trials for a flu vaccine, called mRNA-1010, that is based on the same mRNA technology that Moderna and Pfizer used for their COVID vaccines, and that several other companies including Sanofi and Glaxo all are actively working on for the influenza use case. Our experts are general partners Vineeta Agarwala and Jorge Conde of the a16z bio team, who have joined us on many of our vaccine-rel...
Aug 02, 2021•17 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast Given recent news of drug company settlements, calls to action, policy moves, and more, this episode is a rerun of one of our very early explainers (episode #4 of 16 Minutes, 2019) on the opioid crisis. Bio experts and a16z general partners Jorge Conde and Vijay Pande discuss on 16 Minutes (our shortform show where we discuss the headlines, tease apart what's hype' what's real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation) with host Sonal Chokshi: how opioids work; the questions around who's t...
Jul 26, 2021•19 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to 16 Minutes, the a16z show where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype and what’s real, and the long arc of innovation. In today's episode we’re talking about the latest developments and trends in cybercrime – including the trends of ransomware, and, attacks on physical infrastructure. First (0:00 - 6:07), we have the recent attack on the meat processing plant JBS, the largest meat processor in the world; just last week it had to temporarily shut down some operations in th...
Jun 09, 2021•12 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast Given recent buzz and ongoing debates around the Endless Frontiers Act -- which some have described as “the most important piece of legislation no one's heard of” -- this episode is a rerun of an episode from last year, recorded after said act was initially unveiled. The short discussion covers the broader topic and theme of funding science and innovation, and R&D in general -- not just in government agencies, but corporations, and the overall landscape there as well. Notably, the name of the En...
May 25, 2021•11 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast Playing out against the backdrop of a global pandemic (including recent massive surges in regions around the world) is the news that came out a week ago that a candidate "malaria vaccine becomes first to achieve WHO-specified 75% efficacy goal”. While the findings are still in preprint with The Lancet , the resulting buzz and phrases quoted included everything from “unprecedented”, “groundbreaking work”, and “very exciting” to “high expectations”, “highly effective”, and “a hugely significant ex...
May 02, 2021•36 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes, our show where we cover tech trends in the news — and also cover themes from company developer and innovation events! — we focus on the latest coming out of Apple’s event this week. The company announced a bunch of things, ranging from new device colors and form factors to podcast services, but in this episode we asked regular guest Steven Sinofsky (an a16z board partner and former Microsoft Windows president who has appeared on past event episodes including...
Apr 25, 2021•14 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast We have two brief segments in today’s episode: News and analysis of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine pause, and the widespread hack of Microsoft Exchange Servers across the country (and the dramatic and unusual steps the FBI took in response). Johnson & Johnson: Federal health officials last week revealed that six women who received the vaccine had developed rare and severe blood clots in their brain, in one case fatally. Even more recently, a panel of expert advisors to the Centers for Disea...
Apr 19, 2021•15 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast This deep-dive -- one of our occasional 2-4X explainer episodes on 16 Minutes; (past such episodes have covered everything from Section 230 and Tiktok to GPT-3 and the opioid crisis ) -- teases apart what's hype/ what's real -- and the what, where, how, why, who, and other questions top of mind around all things NFTs: what NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are -- as well as the properties of crypto that enable them, just to set some big-picture context; what forms they take, and what is and ISN’T an NF...
Mar 28, 2021•56 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast Today on our news analysis show 16 Minutes — since this show is all about teasing apart what’s hype/ what’s real and where we are on the long arc of innovation — we're taking a quick pulse-check with the experts on just where we are with the COVID vaccine rollout in the U.S. Our experts today are Dr. Bob Wachter , the Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF — he has come to additional prominence during the pandemic as a regular public resource, providing daily updates & reports on Twitter th...
Mar 20, 2021•18 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast In today's episode of our news analysis show 16 Minutes, our topic is the ongoing buzz and the mixed news around the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was the third vaccine for COVID approved under Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA just a few weeks ago. Johnson & Johnson reported it as “the first single shot vaccine” and as having 85% efficacy in preventing severe disease across regions studied; meanwhile, STAT headlines reported 66% efficacy overall and 72% in the U.S. in preventing moderat...
Mar 16, 2021•12 min•Ep 58•Transcript available on Metacast In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes, our show where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/ what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation, the topic is semiconductors – specifically, the ongoing global shortage that began last summer and has intensified in recent weeks. So much so, that the U.S. president signed an executive order just last week to address concerns around the shortage, calling for reviews of supply chains for critical sectors of the economy. Our expert...
Mar 07, 2021•17 min•Ep 57•Transcript available on Metacast In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes — where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/ what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation — the topic is NFTs ("non-fungible tokens"); specifically, the news that Christie’s has become the first major auction house to offer a purely digital artwork tied to an NFT or “non-fungible token." We’ll go more into NFTs (as well as whether this is really a big deal or not) in this episode, but here’s the news context: The work of art bein...
Feb 25, 2021•12 min•Ep 56•Transcript available on Metacast We have two brief segments — taking up less than 16 Minutes! — in this week’s episode of "16 Minutes," where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation. Both segments touch on trends in gaming/ online worlds and entertainment — both now and "next." First, Steam China: Steam — the cloud library and marketplace for buying, selling, and storing games that was launched by Valve in 2003 and is now the largest distribution platform fo...
Feb 20, 2021•12 min•Ep 55•Transcript available on Metacast Amazon just announced this week that its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos "will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and [CEO of Amazon Web Services] Andy Jassy will become Chief Executive Officer at that time". So in this episode of 16 Minutes -- our show where we talk about tech trends in the headlines, what's hype/ what's real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation -- we talk not just about this news, but what it signals regarding cloud computing as well a...
Feb 06, 2021•17 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast In this special “3x”-long episode of our (otherwise shortform) news analysis show 16 Minutes -- past such 2-3X explainer episodes have covered section 230 , Tiktok , GPT-3 , the opioid crisis , more -- we cover the SolarWinds hack , one of the largest (if not the largest!) publicly known hacks of all time... and the ripple effects are only now starting to be revealed. Just this week, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency shared ( as reported in the Wall Street Journal) that a...
Feb 01, 2021•48 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast We've got segments on artificial intelligence and IPO innovation in today's episode of 16 Minutes, where we take a look at the news and what it means for the long arc of innovation. In the first segment (0:00) : Take the surrealistic images of Salvador Dali and cross them with Pixar's animated film Wall-E and you've got ... Dall-E! It's a new neural network that creates images based on text inputs, and the worlds of A.I. and machine learning recently got their first glimpse. Last summer, researc...
Jan 26, 2021•21 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast All about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act -- what does and doesn't it say? How does this law play out against broader questions and debates around platforms, content moderation, and free speech? This conversation between Mike Masnick (founder and editor in chief of Techdirt) and a16z editor in chief Sonal Chokshi was originally published May 2020, in the context of previous protests and presidential tweets (and an executive order then to prevent “online censorship”)-- but is exactl...
Jan 16, 2021•40 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast We're covering two trends in this week’s episode of "16 Minutes," where we talk about the news, tech trends, and the long arc of innovation: #1 FinCEN, the Treasury Department's financial crimes enforcement arm, proposed a new rule targeting cryptocurrency holders’ ability to transact using self-hosted wallets. These are software applications for storing crypto that allow people to transact on the blockchain directly, rather than going through financial institutions. The rule would require banks...
Jan 11, 2021•21 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast We're back to covering multiple items on our show 16 Minutes -- which covers the news, occasional explainers, and teases apart what's hype/ what's real -- as well as where we are on the long arc of innovation: #1 Hackers spied on U.S. Treasury emails and other federal agencies through malware installed (indirectly via a third-party provider) over a year ago, but the hack was just revealed this weekend and confirmed in a statement from the National Security Council yesterday. It could be one of t...
Dec 16, 2020•16 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of our show 16 Minutes -- where we talk about the headlines, and where we are on the long arc of tech trends -- we cover the news around Google DeepMind's AlphaFold system for predicting the 3-D structure of proteins outperforming 100 teams across 20 countries in the 14th Community Wide Assessment on the CASP (Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction) challenge . The challenge, which takes place every other year (over several months) tracks progress, key metrics, and state-of-...
Dec 07, 2020•28 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast [simplecast-embed src="https://16minutes.simplecast.com/episodes/16mins-transparency-in-coverage-rules-cms-hhs-healthcare-pricing-cost-patients-payers-hospitals-comparison-competition?dark=true"] The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the latest in a series of “ historic " rules a few weeks ago; the controversial rules -- which have been in the works for a while, but are now final -- are intended to increase price transparency in (what's been described by the U.S. Department o...
Nov 20, 2020•23 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast We cover the latest coming out of Apple’s event last week, where they announced the first new lineups of devices based on Apple Silicon M1 chips, which officially came out today. And since there’s already plenty of analysis on performance, benchmarks, and more, we cover the big picture: Apple’s moving away from Intel chips, and to their own chips (that run on the Arm instruction set); what does it all mean? And given our penchant on this show for orienting where we are on the long arc of innovat...
Nov 18, 2020•20 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast A vaccine for COVID seems to be (almost) here... or is it? What's hype/ what's real beyond the headlines (and beyond the press release), when it comes to the announcement earlier this week from Pfizer and BioNTech that their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19? Of course, this was just the first interim efficacy analysis -- so how close or far are we? What's the significance of the readout and case numbers? How do we put this (and related approaches, ...
Nov 14, 2020•22 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast Aliens are among us. Well, the online multiplayer game Among Us is -- a murder mystery set in space, where the group must figure out who the alien imposter is (a variation of party games like Werewolf or Mafia) -- has seemingly suddenly become very popular. And not just because a major politician livestream-played it earlier this week, which is what makes this news. So on this episode of 16 Minutes on the News -- our show where we talk about what's in the headlines; tease apart what's hype/ what...
Oct 25, 2020•15 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast "It's CRISPR!" This week, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna (also an a16z co-founder, of Scribe Therapeutics ), for the development of the CRISPR/Cas9 method for genome editing -- a technology that's "had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies, and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true". While many describe this technology as "genetic scissors", one of the sharpest to...
Oct 10, 2020•24 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast We cover the latest news since Nvidia (maker of GPUs among other things) announced its intent to acquire Arm (provider of silicon IP for system-on-chips inside billions of devices), arguing that "This combination has tremendous benefits for both companies, our customers, and the industry." But how so, when critics are worried about channel conflict, shepherding the broader ecosystem of users, and other issues? Some believe the deal may not go through, and there are also concerns about it for geo...
Oct 03, 2020•23 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast 
